Fergy Family Adventures

HALF WAY

2012-01-27T16:13:00.000-07:00

I have mentioned before but back in September I started Weight Watchers with the lofty goal to lose 50 lbs. Well, I am very proud to write that as of almost 2 wks ago I hit the 1/2 mark! At Thanksgiving I got mostly new tops some of which already are sadly too big for me already & at New Years I finally got new pants and for the first time in OVER a decade I was able to get a popular style of jeans instead of what just buying only thing that fit.

I know that you can't tell much, but this picture was one of the first in a long time where I haven't hated my full body shot, ESPECIALLY when standing next to most of my sister's-in-law who are such Skinny Minnies!

Here's to hoping the next 25 come off as smoothly as the first 25 (hello swimsuit season)!

Two of a Kind

2012-01-27T16:00:00.001-07:00

In spit of all the screaming and beating the twins do on each other at the end of the day they LOVE each other and don't like to be separated. They sleep in the same bed still and even when there is a whole couch Cami snuggle up right next to her bro. & by the smile on Josh's face you can see he loved it.

Unlike Phoebe was at 2years old Cami is our resident little mother; she LOVES carrying around baby dolls & she dresses them, wraps them, rocks them, & changes them.(Phoebe use to kick her dolls and throw them across the room & if she snuggled anything it was a bear.) Cami hates when Sophie cries and is the first one there with kisses and to make her laugh. So bearing this in mind when I was trying to cook dinner the other night and feed Sophie, so started to cry and Cami came and grabbed the already made oatmeal right off the counter behind me and went right over and began to feed Sophie for me. Surprisingly enough she didn't hardly gagged Sophie and Sophie ate her whole bowl of oatmeal.

I am predicting Cami will be the my child who goes into a care taking carrer or has a ton-o-kids.

Cami's First Cut

2012-01-27T15:32:00.000-07:00

Cami has more lushes hair than any of my other children and it was driving her and me crazy. Her because it kept falling in her eyes and food and me because it ALWAYS was messy tangles. Last week we decided we finally needed to do something about it so we took her to our wonderful neighbor Candice for her first hair cut. You can see she did have longer red lock

We went over not knowing what we should do bangs or not, length?? But my neighbor is great with hair and knew exactly what to do for our cutie Cams. Her last picture with bangs is uncanny how much then looks like me a little girl.

After styling her hair and a day to get use to the bangs I now LOVE Cams' hair and I think she really loves not getting her hair pulled when it's brushed & not fighting the hair constantly falling in her face. She even gave me her signature wink of approval!

The Fergy Kids are Like a Big Box of Chocolates

2012-01-17T16:22:00.001-07:00

Have I ever mentioned I am bored here??? No. Well that's probably because the Fergy kids are a like a big box of Chocolates, you never know what you're gonna get. All of these pics are from the last week.

Cami and Phoebe have discovered just because they can not reach the powered sugar anymore does not mean the party stops. Oh NO, now they have discovered the canisters of flour and sugar & whenever they need something sweet they get into them. I say them because Cami insist on eating the plain flour over and over...GROSS.

Carters had a big clearance sale and since Miss Sophie is my naughty girl and insists on growing up on my I needed 9 mos clothes so she got this adorable bear outfit among MANY others things.

For some reason the kids have started this routine where when we say everyone upstairs for bed they all run to a stair and lay on it. Weirdos...they think it's funny. It was cute the first time but it grows old quickly prying them all off the stairs individually and pulling up to their rooms.

Miss Sophie has a love hate relationship with food. She ate it well in Nov. then decided she hated it. We tried again on New Year and she loved it, then after a day hated it and spits it EVERYWHERE. Well not Cory has found the trick mix the oatmeal with formula and not water & keep it thick. She doesn't absolutely love it but she tolerates it and that's good enough for us.

Last night we named Sophie the family pouch, because she now it looks like she just sits and begs for food like you dog would and Josh slips her some if you'e now watching. Last night however, Sophie just decided she really wanted his dinner so she just grabbed it off his tray and took it.

Sometimes I wish it was just a little bit less exciting around here. I know if the twins are out of my site for ANY amount of time something "fun" is probably a brewing and if that wasn't enough now Sophie insists on getting in on the Fergy Mixture of Foul.

Phoebe's Interview 2012

2012-01-09T21:14:00.001-07:00

We have started a new tradition, the family interview at New Years. Here is Phoebe's interview:

8 Months Old

2012-01-06T11:33:00.000-07:00

Yesterday our little Sophie Marie turned 8 months old. She has begun to do so much in the last month she growing up too fast for me. She just started with her raiment of rice/oatmeal cereal. (My kids have always been less than stellar eaters so we usually wait till 8-9 months to start them.) Sophie also is getting to be a sufficient army crawler and you have to watch her if something is left on the ground she WILL eat it, so far in the last week other kiddos have left out stickers, dried noodles, green tinsel, etc...for her to eat and us to pick out of her mouth.

Sophie has also decided in the last month that she is now a thumb sucker so now all 3 girlys are thumb suckers, something I need to remedy, but haven't had the will to do. The bathroom scale says she weighs 16 lbs but we will have to wait another month for the official weigh in. I know I have said it before it still goes that Sophie is the most patient and gentel natured little girl I have ever had and we just love her to bits!

Go DUCKS!

2012-01-06T11:19:00.000-07:00

As for me and my house we are OREGON DUCKS fans! Every year we celebrate while watching the Ducks play in their bowl game, last year we have family over this year we got fun matching outfits from grandma+pa Potts and we had pictures taken.

Thanks a ton to my neighbor Krisi who came over and took the pictures for us!

New Years Eve 2011

2012-01-06T11:10:00.000-07:00

This kids saw to it that we started celebrating New Years Eve from early in the morn, about 5:30am to be exact. I got up with them from 5:30 -7am then Cory traded me for a bit and I went back to bed fora bit. During the day we watched & cheered for the Utes who won their game and in the evening we joined a couple neighbors for a family friendly New Years Eve party. We made pizzas and enjoyed TONS of other food, unfortunately I gained 1/2lb from all the partying.

At 8:30pm we made our own countdown and wore party hats and banged spoons together.

After all the junk food, playing and staying up later the kids were definitely ready for bed at this point, so we had a bit of Martinelli's to celebrate and called it a night. We didn't do anything grand, but it was one of my favorite celebrations in a while.

6 YEARS!

2012-01-06T10:57:00.000-07:00

This year we celebrated our 6th anniversary much more casually than last year. Cory let me pick a movie, which I chose Sherlock Holmes and then he picked the restaurant which was Salt Lake Burger Co. This dinner was delicious, I highly recommend it and the movie was good but a bit confusing. It was nice just to have a laid back celebration this year and to plan all of our fun dates for the next year!

The drawing is Cory's rendition of our plans on our shower wall: movie ticks, burger & shake.

Sneaking into Neighbor Gifts

2012-01-06T10:39:00.001-07:00

As always we such wonderful neighbors who brought tons of goodies around at Christmas time. Unfortunately on MANY occasions I would come down and find sneaky kiddos also enjoying our many delicatessens. Stinkin' kids get into EVERYTHING & no child lock can keep this little redhead out when she wants something, believe me we have tried.

In case you are wondering, YES Cami did eat that whole mini loaf of bread, it took almost 2 days but she finished off every single crumb. I figured I would let her have at it because it was better to add those calories & lbs to her little waist than mine!

Will the Craziness Ever End??

2011-12-31T13:14:00.000-07:00

Our kids have always been a little crazy, but for some reason coming off from Christmas the extra craziness has begun to show its self. This picture of Josh and Daddy was actually taken by Phoebe, she is improving!

Cami insists I do her hair everyday with mismatched pigtail clips, Sophie is ever so patient while her sibling think it is a good idea to dress her up.

Earlier this week the twins took a bath and when they were done they left the water in the tub and I guess I forgot to empty it after I dresses the whole gaggle of kiddos so about 30 minutes later Cami wandered back in the bathroom for a second swim.

Ahh...how could you not love a ratbird like Crazy Cams.

On a side note: You know how hard wet jeans are to take off, well compound that with a diaper that has swollen to 10x its normal size and the effects are high obnoxious for mommies trying to change soaking children.

Rockin' Around the Christmas Tree '11

2011-12-31T13:05:00.000-07:00

Thanks to extended family our Christmas was VERY bountiful!

Santa also left his haul behind, Phoebe got a Mulan Doll, Cami & Josh got a Work Bench, & Sophie got Formula (her favorite!) Each of the kiddos & parents also got a movie in their stocking along with other small trinkets.

We always start the morning by gathering on our bed for a special prayer then going down to the tree together.

Everyone was a bit overwhelmed with so MANY presents. Phoebe was the first to open a present and in Josh's opinion she took too long so he had a seat to wait on one of Cami's gift, luckily it was nothing breakable.

This was one of the first years the twin got into opening their own gifts. They still required a little help, but they at least didn't make us do all the work.

The last present we got to enjoy was a Sophie in the box, definitely my most worth wile one yet.

For Christmas this year we go Josh his first train set and he LOVED it. He carries them all over the house, and pushes them in his baby stroller saying choo-choo. He even shares his precious trains with Sophie, which she likes because they are small enough for her to hold.

For Christmas breakfast I splurged on the diet and made GIANT cinnamon rolls (one rolls take up a whole 8in cake pan) and they were delicious!

For the rest of Christmas day we went to church and then took naps/cooked dinner. For dinner this year I broke out of the traditional ham routine and made an awesome roast beast with the other normal Christ mas sides.

After dinner we played with toys and relaxed. Christmas this year wasn't the jolliest in the Fergy home, patience was in low supply while fits were in a bountifulness, so in an eagerness to have better (normal) days ahead of us Christmas was taken down by Monday afternoon. Lets hope our Christmas' only get Merrier from here!

Christmas Eve 2011

2011-12-29T14:29:00.001-07:00

Every year I always say I am not leaving any sewing projects to the last minute and then EVERY year I find myself once again procrastinating on something and frantically sewing up until Christmas again. This year it was these cutie owls for other family member (In case you can't tell we have the wise owl, handyman owl, marathon owl, princess owl, astronaut owl & fireman owl).

On Christmas Eve our family follows the Potts family tradition of an Italian dinner which always is lasagna, bread, salad & italian sodas (I added the sodas to the menu beginning last year).

After our dinner we decorated our gingerbread cookies to enjoy as dessert and to leave out for Santa. I was really impressed with Phoebe's decorating skills this year she did a Gingerbread cookie with a face and even added long hair she you know it was a girl. Right after the picture however she dumped a ton of red sugar all over the face, Cory and I joked that maybe her gingerbread girl made the mistake of waking one of Phoebe's horror film elves...

After all messes were done being made we opened our traditional Christmas eve pjs in a pail (well I just added the pail part this year, something I have wanted to do for a while now).

After donning our new duds we read the scriptures & reenacted the story of Christ's birth with our Little People toy set. As you can see by Phoebe's expression she LOVED this and kept asking to do it again.

Our last bit of business for the night was to spread our reindeer food out in the front yard. This was the twins first year doing this and they got into it ~~throwing~~ spreading it everywhere.

Afterwards we tucked all in, read The Night Before Christmas and began cooking for our bountiful breakfast for Christmas.

Checkin' Up on Santa's Elves 2011

2011-12-29T14:07:00.000-07:00

Once again this year we started our Christmas Eve celebrations off with a trip to see Santa's Elves at Gardner Village where I also found this random bathtub show just siting behind one of the stores and just had to get in it to quickly freshen up.

We then moved on to visit the rest of Santa's Elves busily working to finish all the gifts in time for Christmas. We also got a peek at Santa's naughty and Nice list and found Sophie's name... unfortunately she was on the Naughty list, something we could have predicted, we ALWAYS get the naughty ones.

The day before we visited the Elves I told Phoebe we would be going and she told me that we must be very quiet, because there will be sleeping elves. I said "What will they do if you wake them, bite you finger?" Phoebe quickly corrected me, "No they will eat your face off." I don't know what kind or horror Christmas fantasy she thinks we celebrate , but I corrected her that elves are nice and don't do naughty things like that.

After safely making it past the sleeping elf I saw a Christmas apron I liked, when I went to look for eh price i only found this tag for $190...that has to be mis-marked.

We then quickly moved on where I was able to snap a picture of Phoebe standing by these statue carolers, she looks just like another crazy dresses caroling statue.

At the end I found some mistletoe I just had to take advantage off while Phoebe INSISTED she stand between us while we kissed. Oh and for good measure we had to just take a picture of Aunt Ashley & Uncle Luis who joined us once again on our elf spoting adventures.

Christmas Utah 2011

2011-12-23T16:57:00.000-07:00

For he 4 year in a row our family last night once again went to enjoy the light and music show that is Christmas Utah. Sure it is cheesy, but it's free and the kids really love it. I tried to make it extra special this year by giving the kids some hot chocolate while watching the 15 minute show, but it just made it so I couldn't get good pictures of them. Miss Sophie slept through the whole show, maybe next year she will catch it.

Phoebe's Preschool Christmas Program '11

2011-12-23T16:49:00.000-07:00

In the middle of December Phoebe had her second preschool program this time celebrating Christmas. Once again it was adorable and funny to watch. After the program was over all the kids had a gift exchange. Phoebe was thrilled to get a stuffed lion holding a blanket.

Workin' at the "car" wash...

2011-12-23T16:05:00.000-07:00

Last week Cory's office had another ribbon cutting ceremony for a new fire station opening, remembering now much the kids loved the last one we decided to do it all again!

Once again they had the truck wash, one of the kids MOST favorite activities. Phoebe scrubbed and polished away at that truck until there was not a drip of water left on it. Josh dried for a minute until he got board & Cami was mainly just too worried about the water they got on the ground spraying down the truck to actually dry any of the truck off.

ALL of our kiddos, even miss Sophie, enjoyed their fire hats and stickers this time without any injury of snapping themselves.

Phoebe even got to sit in the drivers seat of the truck which she still tells about "driving" the truck. This opening had a lot news coverage including the paper, a prominent local news corresponded "Big Budda" & another news station. We were hoping to get to see our kiddos on the new so we told Grandma Fergy to watch for them. Unfortunately, when the time came for the news we forgot and later found out that they had closeups of Phoebe doing her superb cleaning job on BOTH stations and now neither station has the videos they broadcasted on their sites. NUTS!!!

I guess we will just have to do it all again at the next ribbon cutting next summer!!!

Santa is Everywhere you Want to Be

2011-12-23T15:46:00.000-07:00

This year Santa had been prominently visiting all the Fergy kids; which is why I have pictures of all the kiddos with a diffident Santa. Visit #1 (twins) my camera battery died after only one picture. Visit #2 we happened to be at a store where Santa was and my camera died the night before leaving me with no picture of Phoebe & Santa. Visit #3 We finally were someplace Santa was with both a working camera and Sophie.

This year many of my neighbors were trying something with a Photo company called FotoFly, where a parent dresses up as Santa and you get promised adorable pictures, so I tricked Cory into coming (I omitted where and what we were doing until we arrived) and dressing up like Santa, which the kids loved...and yes I know they cut off Santa's head n the pics, that's the point so you think it really was Santa and not see just a skinny Cory or some terrified kid as a stranger dressed weirdly holds them on their lap. I have to say I thought they were GREAT & definitely WILL be going back to do this again!

After the 5-10 min picture shoot you for wait for 20 until they have your disc with all your edited pictures ready, so we watched an ice sculpting demo AMAZING! I couldn't believe they made such delicate work starting with a chainsaw.

We also went and saw Santa's reigndeer on display, which was Phoebe's favorite part.

After we got our Photos we went down a couple block and drove through the holiday light display. It was not the best display ever, but the kids sure liked it a lot so I could see doing that again too.

Overall this was a pretty fun night and if you find your self wondering what to do next year for some holiday fun give all this a whirl we look forward yo next year when we will do it all again!

Ruby Red Socking

2011-12-22T16:10:00.000-07:00

Last year we started a new tradition auctioning off a Christmas stocking for charity. Last years theme was Baby's first Christmas, this year we chose the theme of The Wizard of Oz. To match the theme I made the stocking the Wicked Witch of the East's stripped stockings and Ruby Red Slipper. It took quite a bit of time to create so it would only be fitting that 3 days before it was to be turned in Cami got a hold of a permanent marker and colored all over it. Here's the sad aftermath:

I LUCKILY was able to salvage the ruby ed slipper and re create the socking its self in a couple hours. Here is the whole stocking and its goodies right before it went to auction. In case you can't tell it has the movie, some dress-up slipper and Glendala necklace, a wicked mug with 16 lollipops, and 4 collectors character barbies, which are VERY expensive.

I am happy to say that in the end the stocking sold for $200 to raise money for kids and their at Primary Children's Hospital. We are already brainstorming several idea themes for next year (pirates, foodie, dance/ballet). Got any great ideas???

Temple Square '11

2011-12-22T15:39:00.001-07:00

We have already made our traditional homage down to see the lights at Temple Square. We try and pick one of the warmest days in December to do it so when I saw 42 degrees I figures it isn't gonna get much better and let me tell you it hasn't even been in about 10 degrees as warm since then. This year we went on a Monday instead of the traditional Friday that we have done every other year. We also went at 5:15pm instead of 6-6:30pm in years past and let me tell you it was WONDERFUL not even as 1/2 as crowed as years past. We were able to get several pictures when we weren't waiting for 50 others to move or pass. This year Uncle Davey and Grandma & pa Ferguson joined us which is always an extra treat!

7 Months Old

2011-12-22T15:28:00.000-07:00

This month Sophie Marie turned seven months old and she is getting pretty tricksty. She has decided she only needs one marathon nap a day instead of two. She can hold her own bottle, but refuses to most of the time.

She also gets on all fours all the time and can do a sort of army crawl, that involved ricking back and forth to get enough momentum to lung her body forward. This usually leads to some sort of funky break-dance kind of land which she is never happy with, but still continually does it.

Sophie still has no teeth and still is perpetually happy even if she is being neglected due to siblings taking up all the attention. Even though Sophie doesn't technically crawl yet she NEVER stays in one spot for long. She can barrel roll and wiggle to where eve she wants and often we she has wiggled her way under the Christmas tree to look at the lights.

Due to her incessant wiggling this months photos took 2 days to get. Every time I set her down she immediatly did a pelvic thrush to try and crawl away.

Who Has Ever Heard of a Lowfat Doughnut???

2011-12-22T14:55:00.001-07:00

A couple a Months ago I was really craving doughnuts but I am also trying to stick to my diet so I posted on my Facebook pg that I could really use a LOW-FAT doughnut recipe if such a thing existed. After some recipe Google-ing a friend of mine came to me with a recipe for Lowfat Baked Doughnuts. I figured I would give them a try to see if they were even edible since I already owned a doughnut pan. Let me tell you they are delicious...sure they don't take like a great deep fried maple bar or classic glaze but they are still pretty darn good! I have made multiple batches already and my kiddos LOVE them. I make glazey sprinkle ones and cinnamon sugar ones.

My kids always eat at least 2 whenever I make a batch (not mini sized doughnuts either). One day I even came down stairs to see Josh had snuck into the container of left over doughnuts and he was quietly ravaging them in secrecy.

LOWFAT BAKED DOUGHNUTS

Dry Ingredients:1 Cup All Purpose Flour1/2 Cup Sugar1 1/2 tsp Baking Powder1/4 tsp Salt1/4 tsp (scant) Nutmeg1 tiny pinch or shake CinnamonWet Ingredients:1/2 Cup skim milk1/2 tsp Apple Cider Vinegar1/2 tsp Pure Vanilla Extract2 Egg whites3 Tbs I Can't Believe...Butter LightToppings:glaze - 1/2 Cup Powdered Sugar (lump free!)1 Tbs milk (adds 20 cal per donut)

In a large bowl, combine dry ingredients with a whisk to mix thoroughly. Combine wet ingredients in a small sauce pan over medium low heat and mix until earth balance is melted. This mixture should NOT get too hot, you should be able to stick your finger in the mixture. It should feel slightly warm. If you burn yourself, 1) it's not my fault! and 2) it's too hot for the dough!

Add wet to dry and mix until just combined. It should form a very soft dough.

Using a tablespoon measure, scoop out dough into your ungreased nonstick mini-donut pan. Smooth out the top of the dough with your fingers, this will make for more even, prettier donuts, but isnâ€™t crucial.

the dough sits just below the rim. If you over fill, your donuts will come out looking like it has a little muffin top. Not the end of the world, but not very donut-like either.

Bake for 12 minutes. They should not be browned on top, but a tester will come out clean. Invert hot pan over a cutting board or cooling rack to release donuts. Allow to cool completely before decorating.

Time for toppings!

For glaze:
Whisk soymilk and powdered sugar together. Dip the â€œbottomâ€ half of the donut (the side with the nicer shape) into the glaze, let some drip off, then dip glaze-side down into sprinkles. Transfer to a wire rack that has been set on top of some parchment paper. The excess glaze will drip through the rack onto the paper for easy cleaning later.

Fergy Food House 2011

2011-12-20T22:27:00.000-07:00

A few years ago, probably about 3 to be exact, I bought a gingerbread house kit from Joanns with the intent to take a class on decorating them, however the class got cancelled and I never rescheduled it. I packed the house away in our Christmas box and every year I took it out with the intent of making it, but then eventually just repacked it away. This year when I took the gingerbread kit out Phoebe knew exactly what it was and immediately began asking when were could put it together, well I managed to stall her for one week before I finally broke it open to assemble it together.

After mixed the frosting up and initial assembly, Cory was in change of siting at the table for a long time and holding the house together until it hardened. He didn't mind too much he zoned out watching his college football games.

My job was to on basic house elements for decorating like the roof, door, & windows. Don't look too closely at my handy work I told you already I never took a class on doing it so it looks a might special.

The kids were thrilled at their part candy ~~eating~~ decorating. The candy was SOOO old in the box that much of it could have been used to instill blunt force trauma, but oh well, it just meant that some it actually did get on the house and not just all in mouths.

The finished product. We had fun doing this, but next year I think for ease of assymbly and decoating are going to try thte stacking cookie tree kit.

Festival of Lights

2011-12-20T22:02:00.000-07:00

This year to try something new I chose to visit the festival of Trees. I was pretty sure that Phoebe would love it and just hoping that the others would at least be tolerant of it (I try and set my standards low so I don't have constant disapointments and frustrations when I find out that my children are in fact children & don't always act like perfect young adults).

Right before we left for the festival I was trying to round everyone up and became panicked when I looked and looked for Josh and he ignored my yelling for him after frantically checking all closets and the garage I eventually found him curled up in a ball of the FREEZING bathroom floor, poor guy! I know he can open doors so I am not sure why he chose to be shut in the COLDEST room in the whole house.

We chose to go to the festival on a Friday afternoon, hoping it would not be sooo busy, but we were wrong it was PACKED!

We unfortunately did not have some cooperative kiddos in our group so we only got to see some of the big trees. The ones we did see for the most part were amazing. I really liked the up tree so creative! Since we are Duck fans we had to take a picture of Phoebe next to a rubber duck homage. Cami eventually got tired and just put her legs up and drifted to sleep. I have to say except for one 30 fit from Phoebes the kids were pretty great.

After some cousin meltdowns grandma (who was tending) had to leave which meant that our time was up too. I had to push 2 double strollers to my car & after trying and failing to push then out the door and across the street one lady offered to help me to my car. She had kids of her own, but she still ran with me across the entire South Town Expo parking lot to my car, I am pretty sure she will get extra stars on her crown in heaven for helping me!!! When we aived home it was too late for kiddos to nap and most of them only had small cat naps so we put on a holiday movie and snuggled together on the couch.

The displays at the festival were pretty amazing and I am hoping that we will get to go again next year and enjoy more of it.

Turkey Day '11

2011-11-28T17:30:00.001-07:00

Our weeest turky was just about the same weight as our delicious turkey this Thanksgiving!

As we do every year we enjoyed a delicious thanksgiving meal at Grandma+pa Fergy's house. This year it was just us and Dave that joined so we ate at the table, the twins in highchairs & Sophie in her seat.

After our yummy meal it was actually warm enough to send Daddy outside with the kiddos and play while we cleaned up he kitchen. The kids had a TON of fun running out but I am sure they would have had more fun it their cousins could have been there too.

After playing & cleaning we layed the younger ones down for a good nap while the res of us read through the Black Friday Ads & enjoyed dessert. Then about 6 it was time to head up and rest up for the funnest shopping day of the year!

On Friday I went shopping at 4am and LOVED it! Most all of the stores were empty and I still got everything that I wanted. After several hours of shopping it was time I donned on my apron and made our small Fergy Family Thanksgiving. It was way good this year and I even made my own rolls from a new recipe I found, & they were some of the BEST I have EVER tasted.

Even with 2 giant Thanksgiving meals I an proud to say I kept my weight loss in check and continued to lose another 1 1/2 lbs this week for a total of 15 lbs!

When asking Phoebe what she was thankful for this year she said:

Princesses, my baby (Sophie), a warm house, Thanksgiving, my princess movies, warm blankets, warm food (how ironic for her since she NEVER eats), family, & my Ring-Around-the-Rosie (her new favorite thing to play).

3 Crazy Kids & A Thumb Sucker

2011-11-28T17:02:00.001-07:00

Phoebe likes to on most days dress herself which usually turns out to be some crazy weirdie outfit, a fine example of such is noted above.

The twins are crazy high energy ALL the time and always are looking to make something into a game and this night it happened to be Phoebe's sunglasses which they fought over who got to wear and laugh running around in. You also may not we had to start dressing Cami in her pjs backwards so she would STOP undressing herself down to her birthday suit every night.

About 2 wks ago Sophie decided that she was going to be a thumb sucker. Although she is really cute doing it I mainly think, "Oh no not another one" so every time I see it I take it out of her mouth. It is a hard habit to break, Phoebe is 4 had we still can't get her to stop, so for Sophie's sake later I have stop it before it gets too habit forming.

Here Comes Trouble

2011-11-28T16:46:00.000-07:00

After visiting my parents this summer my dad nicknamed Cami "Trouble." Cami is the sort you need to watch ALL the time; if you don't see her you need to worry about what she is into, climbing on, or breaking. On day last week I came down the stairs to this. Cami had emptied the powered sugar into a toy bucket, found a spoon, pushed a chair up the stove, climbed up on top and began having a snack of spoonfuls of powered sugar.

If she is walking towards you, just know that trouble is coming your way.

Double Datin' Daddy

2011-11-28T16:36:00.002-07:00

Last year Cory took Phoebe out on a daddy daughter date to Disney on ice and Phoebe loved it so much that even a year later she still talked about it, so we just HAD to do it again. Cory took a quick cat nap with the twins before braving the crowds with Phoebs.

Cassie and her daddy joined Cory and Phoebe again this year, but also Katie and her daddy were able to join in the daddy daughter date. The gang took trax down town, Phoebe just LOVES the train and since she only rides it once a year she thinks it only runs to take people to the Disney show all year.

During intermission Cory took Phoebe to pick out a treat and once again she went with the mini pretzels. A girl after mommy's own heart.

The first half of the show had several mini Disney stories, but the second half was all dedicated to the princess. Phoebe told me when arriving home that they went and saw some Disney show ate lunch and then went to a second show all about the princesses!

After arriving home it wasn't much time before bed times and then Cory and I had our date. We had a tailgating date while watching the UofO Stanford game, which turned out to be a GREAT game! We donned on all our UofO gear and got out the UofO blanket to enjoy our game day food of wings, nachos, & cream soda. We also had a little date crasher come and join us; lucky for her she is so cute or we would have sent her right back to bed.

Final score:

Oregon 53 Stanford 30

Thankful Turkey Time 2011

2011-11-28T15:49:00.001-07:00

I can't believe that our Thankful Turkey time has come and gone already. This year all of the family participated in the making of our Thankful Turkey, yes even Sophie helped out. Her little hands made up our wings.

In preschool Phoebe took 3 days to learn about the Pilgrims and Indians and on 2 different days she came home in the traditional hats they made in class.

Much to Phoebe demise, miss Cami stole the Indian headband wore it every opportunity she got.

6 Months!

2011-11-28T11:21:00.000-07:00

As of the 5th, our Sophie turned 6 months old. This meant a 6 month Dr check up:

Weight: 15.10 lbs (50% for girls)

Height: 25 1/2 in (50% for girls)

In this last month Sophie has discovered her little has and feet and LOVES to chew on them. She also learned to sit up and continues to be the best natured baby in the whole world; she smiles almost all the time she is awake, even when she falls over when sitting up.

Sophie takes everything her siblings dish out with smiles most of the time which mean a TON of painful Cami kisses and getting items thrown at our head sometimes during tantrums. We just adore our little "wide mouth frog" and all of her constant smiles & LOUD singing at all times of the day and night.

The First Snow Day of Fun

2011-11-28T11:12:00.001-07:00

We got our first real snow in the beginning of November this year and the kids were THRILLED. The twins never really ventured out in the snow last year since they weren't walking yet so this was a first for them. The kids were eager to get all the snow gear on which seemed like it took forever especially when they tried helping me by dressing themselves, hints why my gloves are on Cami's feet. We finally got all dressed up and I quickly realized Cami has out grown her coat so there is a big space between her gloves and end of the jacket sleeve and Josh has no snow shoes so he went out in furry clogs. Since this day, however, we have remedied most of our sizing issues.

The girls loved the snow and ran right out in it. Josh, our cowardly lion, didn't like the crunch of the snow so he sat for the first while on the lawnmower out of the snow.

Phoebe was eager to make our version snowmen again so we brought out the old carrots and candy. The kids helped put on the smile, you might note how crooked they are.

I taught Phoebe how to make snow angles this year and she loved doing it so much she swished and swished her arms and legs until there was no snow left under her.

After we enjoyed all the snow in our yard and grabbed a snack off the snowman's face we walked to our neighborhood park to play.

The kids loved going down the snowy slides & walking through all the piles of untouched snow.

After we were all thoroughly frozen to the bone we walked home to take hot baths, drink hotcocoa & watch a movie together snuggled on the couch.

Fergy Football Fun

2011-11-16T10:22:00.000-07:00

In the beginning of November Grandma Fergy had a fun idea to do a fun football celebration for all the grandkids because she saw tons of cute football theme food in stores, so we went ready in our game day player and cheerleader gear. We first started off with a fun football obstacle course, which my kids didn't really get. Cami mainly just ran around and Josh played in the leaves.

After playing out in the windy day we came inside and enjoyed a true Fergy football feast

Grandma also gave little footballs to all the boys and pom poms to all the little cheerleaders.

Afterward we went back outside and decorated our football themed cookies made up of trophies, helmets, & footballs. Josh was a true conesure of frosing decorating, he knoew exactly what to do and didn't even eat the frosting.

Cami on the other hand didn't get any frosting on the cookie, it went straight from the bowl to her knife and into her mouth. Whatever...it made her really happy so I let her.

Phoebe quickly got distracted from decorating her cookies, anything involving food isn't her favorite activity. Josh was the only one to eat his cookies, he went straight from decorating to sitting on grandmas stairs enjoying all 3 of his deliciously decorated treats.

This was really a fun cue idea for a party and hopefully it will be a new Fergy football tradition!

Halloween Day'11

2011-11-16T08:42:00.000-07:00

We started off our Halloween in the Fergy home with an orthodontic consultation for Cory, where we found out he has 2 options 1. Surgery for $40,000 or2. Braces for 2 years for $5,500. Gee can you guess what we will opt for??? After the consultation Grandma Fergy joined me for a bit-o-spooky fun at the aquarium where they had the rain forest section all spookified. The kids loved it especially this rat that bounced and made noises when you touched it.

After the aquarium we quickly trick-or-treated daddy office and then ran Phoebe to preschool, where later that day she had a Halloween program for family. While waiting Phoebe got board of sitting and decided to lay down, which made for pretty cute pics.

The class sang about 6 songs and Phoebe, who is normally anti-song & dance, even sang. It was really cute and we were sad daddy had to miss it so we taped it all for him & we posted one of her songs here.

After preschool we went home and began to get ready for our ward trunk-or-treat which was at 5 that night. I forgot to take pics, but we all looked the same as when we went to the Fergy Trunk or Treat 3 nights before. After the ward trunk-or-treat we got our traditional Halloween night Chinese food (this is the only time all year we get it) and went home. We chose not to do door to door trick or treating 'cuse it was cold and the kids had enough candy already. Overall we had a pretty great Halloween.

One last note, because I am a mean mom the next morning I cleared out almost all the Halloween candy we accumulated between all the kids and I sent to work with daddy. My kids haven't missed it at all and I surely don't miss any of the fights/tantrums it would have caused.

Trunk-or-Treating the Fergy Family

2011-11-13T10:25:00.000-07:00

Every year the Fergys gather together the Friday before Halloween and have a Fergy Family Trunk-or-Treat so we can admire each others costumes. This year for Halloween our family chose the theme of Wizard of Oz. We chose this theme because Phoebe has been asking to be a witch for Halloween since last January & Josh is a real life cowardly lion. Cory protested greatly about having to dress up as the Tin Man, he wanted to 1. Not dress up at all & 2. If he had to dress up he wanted to be the All Knowing Wizard, but I vetoed both requests, because we needed the TinMan. I LOVED our family costumes this year!

Phoebe was naturally the wicked witch of the west, but her cousin also wanted in on our theme shoe SHE chose to be the "Dead Witch" aka the Wicked Witch of the East. So here are the two witchy sisters together.

Side Note: Do't you love the height difference, Lilly (on the right) is a whole head taller than Phoebe and she is 2 mos younger than Phoebe.

Grandma Fergy had a whole wonderful meal made including 2 cauldrons of homemade rootbeer or witches brew as we called it.

Josh being in TRUE character of a cowardly lion was scared of the witches brew and had to be held by daddy.

After eating our fantastic meal we all donned on coats over our costumes and went trunk-or-treating to each of the different Fergy Families.

Minus Afton,who is on Ireland & Sophie, who was sleeping, here are all the Fergy clan cousins. Showing all the candy loot.

Phoebe and Cami immediately dug into their candy and began to devour it. Josh was too tired to care about his treats.

IHOPping for FREE Food

2011-11-13T09:56:00.000-07:00

The Friday before Halloween kiddos had so school & IHOP was having a deal for FREE Spooky Face Pancakes for kids so we thought it would be fun to gather everyone up and go. We met the Medico clan there at 7am, early enough daddies could also partake before they went to work. The kids were all still in pjs and we practically had the whole restaurant to ourselves besides 1 other couple in another corner.

You ca see the pancakes came with whip cream partial faces, but they also came with a little cup of candy so kids could decorate the rest of their spooky faces.

Cami's face only had 3 teeth, 'cause she ate the rest. Josh's pancake was complete 'cause we helped him. Phoebe did her face all by herself and she pretty much ate NONE of it, so good thing it was free.

Miss Sophie had a bottle and Cory and I got a real breakfast, so in the end it saved us no money, but the kids all enjoyed it especially because their cousins came to join in on all the fun.

Pumpkin' Paintin' Fun

2011-11-13T09:31:00.000-07:00

This year we took the pumpkins we grew in our garden and let the kiddos pick one to paint except Cami who choose to paint one of the gourds we bought from the fruit stand. As you can see they all completes their own beautiful masterpieces

Miss Sophie did not get to paint her own pumpkin this year, but she did get to try rice cereal for the first, and as was the case with most of our children, she didn't not care for it much and spit most all of it out with a disgusted look on her face. Oh well, we will just be skipping this phase with her too and try again a little later with real food.

The Twins are TWO

2011-11-11T17:17:00.002-07:00

The day after arriving home again from vacation the twins celebrated their 2nd birthdays. This year I was glad to see they didn't cry when we put their party hats. We then wet right down and opened up their gifts under the birthday tree, really it was just left from Phoebe's birthday and everyone liked it so I didn't take it down.

Josh was really into openeing all his gifts and he did quickly all by himself.

Cami on the other hand paid as much interested in her gifts as one would reading a piece of junk mail. We ended up begging her to come back so we could open presents together, but eventually we had to open them for her and just show her and you can see by her face, still how much interest she had in them.

Here are my three "biggies" in their b-day clothes from grandmas.

Later that afternoon while the twins were napping, Phoebe & I went down and picked out the twins b-day cupcakes (sorry to disappoint all throes who thought I would homebake greatness, I DON'T do birthday cakes). While we were out Phoebe got to spend her $2 that she got from Grandma Potts and these were the treats she picked.

After mini pizzas for dinner the twins blew their candles out on the cakes. Once again Cami was blew hers out immediately and Josh had a bit of trouble getting his candles out. Bless his heart, he sure is zealous with his little blows, but he just has no since of aim with them. When he finally got his candles out all the kids enjoyed frosting only part of their cupcakes.

Second birthdays around here tend to be luster lacking, but they had fun still.

I just had to add this last picture because Josh is giving me the angry eyes, something that is getting to be a more common around here, but it never ceases to make me laugh.

Vegas Baby!

2011-11-10T16:31:00.001-07:00

I am really slow in getting to this but in the middle of October we went on a vacation to Vegas with my parents. We were excited for the vacation but really sad when shorty before we left we found out that one of the restaurants, Nascar Cafe, that we saw on on Man vs Food was no longer open. The Lord must have felt our sincere sadness and had pity on us because though we couldn't try the B3 we did win a free McFlurry from McDonalds.

For this trip we stayed at the stratosphere Hotel; nice hotel but a bit far off the Strip for walking. Seeing as they were one of the only hotels, however, that didn't charge for kids they won us over. Almost everyday we started off by eating at Denny's (3 different Denny's in total). We then hiked to the monorail and started on the strip down by MGM.

We saw the Lions and this time we even splurged and took the family in the aquarium in Mandalay Bay. It was a bit expensive but really cool. We saw a Golden Crocodile, Komodo Dragon and one of the only predator shark takes in the world. My favorite was the Green Sawfish (it can reach up o 24ft and their snout has 24-28 blades on it).

Among one of my favorite parts of Vegas besides the lavish displays are all the great buffets! I figure if I am not eating healthy I won't make my kids either so yes that is a chocolate cupcakes Cami is eating for her dinner, it was one of the only things that silenced her yells.

As always the Billagio Gardens were was AMAZING!!! The giant ears of corn re made up from 60 pieces of Indian corn. You proabably can't see but the pumpkin weighs 835lbs and there were several this size. Our kids LOVED he 20 ft tall talking tree. The apples at it's base were 3 ft tall and made up of 3,400+ roses EACH! There was even more wonderful stuff to see in the gardens, but too much to post all here.

The Bellagio was also home to Jean Philippe's Patisserie, which had several cool things one of which was the world's largest chocolate fountain. It took 2 years to build and stands 26ft 3in tall. It circulates 2 tons of chocolate at a rate of 120 quarts per min. Just as a fun treat we bought a cookie there, we only got 1 because they were $4 EACH so the kids all split it.

The patisserie also housed this which was hand made out of 60 lbs of chocolate and 30 lbs of fondant. It took 4 people from the patisserie 1 month to create it.

One of the coolest parts about going on vacation with my parents is that they took the kids for a might so we could have our "million dollar date." Okay so it wasn't actually a million dollars, but it was one of the most expensive things we have EVER done! (Thanks Mom and Dad for treating 1/2 of it). We started by having dinner at Fleur which is Hubert Keller's restaurant. I have to admit I had never heard of him, but my dad said he really loved watching him on the Food network. I was shocked when I found out that Hubert really was the chef there, he came out and greeted a couple tables, non of which was our to my dismay. The food was so fancy that it was near microscopic is size (the true measure of fine food) and that was for the LARGE platter which we ordered; literally Cory's dinner was served on a 6x12in rectangle platter & came with a 1/2 a small fennel, 1 baby carrot, 2 pieces spinach and a piece of duck smaller than the size of my cell phone. To make up for the puny per-portions of our dinner we ordered 2 deserts to share, DELI-SH!

After dinner we went and saw the Broadway version of the Lion King. The costumes in this were truly amazing! It deserved every award it has won.

I had mentioned before that every day we had to take the monorail to the strip well when I asked Phoebe what her favorite part of the trip was she answered pack the moving stairs and the train so I figured I should get some pictures of them for her then.

On our last full day we finally got to see M&M world and we even took time to go watch the 3-D movie they had, which some kids like and some not so much.

The morning we were leaving was the day before the twins birthday so we had a little early celebration at the hotel buffet with grandma & pa Potts. For a special treat our waitresses fashioned mini cakes for them, even though it was still breakfast, complete with candles to blow out and several other staff members singing. As you can see by te grin on Cami's face she loved it! Josh was eager to blow out his "hot" candle and took serveral blows at it, but in the end I had to help him a bit

Right after breakfast we had to run up to the tower on level 108 and view Las Veags from up on high. As you can see the strip looks much less exciting during the day, but our pool did look better from that high up than when we actually went and swam in it.

As we were leaving town we had to take a picture of Las Vegas' largest Souvenirs Store with a sign so dumb I could't believe they actually have it up. Although its redeeming quality is its obvious stupidity does make me still laugh a bit.

As with all our trips with our 4 Ratbirds we left absolutely exhausted and eager to return home where they can run free, but thanks from all the added help from my parents we truly did have a pretty fun time down in Vegas.

Phoebe's Night Owl Party

2011-11-02T20:47:00.000-06:00

Back in July we saw a party someone called Night Owl Party. After seeing all the detail I knew that this was going to be perfect for Phoebe's 4h birthday Party, so I got to work. Not a minute too soon either because all these absolutely adorable owls take quite a bit of time to sew by hand!

Going with the night time and owl theme, we have the front door with an rod iron owl and glow in the dark stars. We also have cute owl cupcakes my neighbor made for me.

Cory drew a cute head and foot board, a faux window & some pillows to decorate the table with. I got some cute felt owls off etsy and then hot glued hair clips on the back.

I decorated the chandler with stars and felt owls which I am now planning on decorating Phoebe's room with.

The Party started at 5:30 with everyone making their own mini pizzas.

While the pizzas were baking we went out back and did a craft project with glitter glue glitter star stickers and foam.

When the great pizzas were done we all came back and enjoyed!

After dinner I turned out the lights and told all the kids to find a glow-in-the-dark star on the wall, all the stars had numbers on them. I then started with Phoebe and each person got to adopt the owl with that number on the back of the card. All the owls were themes and came with their own theme poem and adoption card. We had all the kids name their owls and most of the girls opted with famous princess names.

Following the owl adoption we opened gifts, Phoebe got a lot of really great stuff, thanks everyone!

We then headed back to the table to have the birthday cupcakes. By this time my kids had spilled all over the table cloth, which turned out to be a blessing in disguise because as I was setting the cupcakes on the table for Phoebe to blow out I spilled them all over with the sparkler candles lit. This could have EASILY started the table cloth on fire, but luckily my kids pre-soaked it for me.

After no one but Lily ate the cupcakes we put on glowing braceets and danced in the dark while watching Pixar's Short film collection. I have to say by this time we were really READY for this party to be done. Having his many 3 & 4 yr olds at once is a BIT much!

We still had a ton of fun well those of us who didn't sleep all the way through the party that is.

Spooky Cruise

2011-10-25T12:30:00.001-06:00

This year for a fun new adventure we went on a Halloween cruise, which was easier said than done. We should have known our trip ad a bad omen when we went to go find the location and found out that road construction closed the exit off the freeway we needed and then took about 1 hr to find back roads to get to the place in a town we don't know well at all. When we got to the place it was BUSY and we had to wait 30 minutes in a lone to get to the window then another 30 minutes for a boat. While we waited luckily we had LOTS of snacks.

To start the cruise all the kids 12 and under had to put on life jackets, Cami WAS NOT HAPPY about this and screamed non stop!!! None of he other kids seemed to mind though. I wore Sophie's on my shoulder for her.

The boat we rode was large and sat 40 people and moved with man who stood in front pulling on ropes that were over our head. There were 100s of carved pumpkins and fun Halloween lights over head. The whole thing was really pretty and would have been quite enjoyable if we hadn't had the stress of trying to quiet down Sophie & Cami's screaming the whole time. Definitely sothing fun to do, but leave the kids 2 & under at home, you'll enjoy it so much more!

Phoebe's FOUR!

2011-10-25T11:52:00.001-06:00

As of the 12th I no longer had 4 under four I now have 4 four & under. This was the first year that Phoebe really understood her birthday and was super excited for it. On her Birthday morning she woke up and groggily asked, "Is it my birthday yet?" Yes Phoebe it is! She was so excited to put on her birthday crown and take pictures this year which is another first. I know it looks like a tons of gifts, but know they are not all from me, not even 1/2 of them were.

Here werea few of Phoebe's favorite gifts. We had a princess themed gifts from everyone this year.

After breakfast Grandma Fergy came over to wish Phoebe a happy Birthday and she gave her a cute outfit and this Princess School workbook, which Phoebe broke out right then and there and started to work in.

Phoebe insited on wearing her birthday hat at every snack and meal. Then for Preschool that day she got to be a very important person which meant she brought a couple things for show and tell, along with pictures of the family, & treats for the day. She also got to wear a crown and a VIP sticker which you can kinds see in the pics.

Phoebe really wanted an Arora cake for her birthday, but she settled for Cinderella luckily since that was all I could find at Wallys. We all enjoyed the cake which was more than Phoebe wanted to do, she had asked if she could just go to bed after her birthday hamburgers, her dinner choice. I was a mean mom however and insisted she stay up for birthday cake & in sptite of wanting to go to bed early Phoebe said she had a really good birthday at the end of the day.

Harvest Pickins

2011-10-25T11:23:00.000-06:00

I was a little late in choosing all of what I wanted to can this year which meant I missed out on all the good tomatoes at the local Farmrs market so I took a trip with Mom to the "Famous Friut Way" in Brigham City which is an hour away. I know it is way out of my way, but I also went as a fun trip for the kids.

I let the kids pick out their own fun Gourds which Josh didn't understand that get got to take one home. when he finally did understand the concept it was hard to keep him to one and no ten gourds. They also had fun cutouts the kids got pics with. Well Josh & Phoebe did, Cami just wanted to play withe the pirates sparkly booty.

They also had a fun section of tons-o-pumpkins where the twiners enjoyed running around.

And as always Sophie was just thrilled to be in tow and smiled like crazy whenever she saw anyone looking her way. We think next year we will make one big Fergy Family trip and get all of our canning fruits and veggies & also so the kids can play with all the fun displays they have out.

Pizza House Party & Date Night

2011-10-25T09:47:00.000-06:00

Once again I was lucky enough to be chosen to host another Houseparty! This time it was for Johnsonville Italian Sausages. The point of the party was to try the different sausages on pizza. Let me tell you this was really one of the best food house-parties I have ever had. The sausages won us over & no longer are we boring pepperoni pizza people (well maybe for the kids we are).

We has 10 people over to try and make their own delicious pizzas so it was our best turn out for a house party too. Overall I had lots of fun & I hope all the guest did too!

I actually forgot to take pics of the party, but because the pizzas were SOO good Cory and I decided to have a dinner and movie date night the next night making some of these hevaenly little pizza pies and watch Tron which was steaming for free on Netflix. Our totally free date night was great and it was so relaxing that I actually feel asleep in the movie, not that the movie was bad, but I am just getting that old where 10:30pm is plain past my bedtime.

5 Months!

2011-10-25T09:07:00.000-06:00

Okay so I am so late in posting this that Sophie is actually closer to 6 months now, but oh well.

On the 5th our Miss Sophie Marie turned 5 months old. She is still the most jovial baby you could EVER imagine. In the last month Sophie has spent he majority of time on her tummy. She LOVES being on her tummy, which is the complete opposite of any of my other babies. When you lay Sophie down on her back she will roll over to her tummy immediately, she even does this in her sleep, which unfortunately means she leaks all over the bed every night, because diapers were not designed for prolonged tummy time.

Sophie continues to be about a month behind in her vision milestones so within the last month Sophie finally began to play with toys and man she has a good grip with whatever she does grabs. Sophie also is now strong enough to sit up in her little chair which she loves, because it gives her a different view of her surroundings.

Sophie loves being roomies with Phoebe and never wakes up in the night. she still prefers to fall asleep on our arms at night, but she will also just fall asleep with no fuss in her crib if we need her too. Her brother and sisters just adore her so much and it is safe to say Miss Sophie is just the most adored sibling by all her siblings. If only she would STOP all the spitting up she just started to do out of nowhere in the last month I could adore her more with less clean up.

Slow and Steady Wins the Race

2011-10-06T15:14:00.000-06:00

Last month I started weight watchers with my mom. I have to say I am awful when it comes to dieting due to my poor knowledge in nutrition and the fact that don't know what to cook, because I have skinny children and a way too skinny husband that can't afford to loose any more weight. I have found with their plans, however that it might just finally be possible for me to to try and do a diet. It is slow going 4 lbs in 4 wks, but it's progress. The best part of the weight watchers plan is that it is a point system so you can eat almost completely normal wit only minor adjustments and then they even give you bonus points every week so I can still do a Cupcake run with all my sisters and lose weight!!!

I may not drop the weight and be America's Next Top Model next month, but slowly seems to be better if it means I can still eat the yummier things in life once in a while.

Canning Mishaps

2011-10-06T15:02:00.001-06:00

As October rolled in I realized I had been a bit delinquent in getting all my canning done so my Cory's Mom graciously came over and helped me get going.

Normally something like this is better left for nap times, but as are limited on time, one morning I had to can while kids were still up, it was a bit of a disaster. Cory's Mom did 95% of the canning for me while I dealt with screaming kids, messes, & baths.

I tired setting out water colors hoping they would entertain themselves with painting; I was cautious of the mess it might make so I stripped them down, I just didn't anticipated my almost 2 yr old eating the paints, hints wear the baths come in.

Moral of the Story: Canning & kids don't mix.
Thanks for doing all my canning for me Mom!

4 Little Skeletons

2011-10-06T14:47:00.000-06:00

Last year we bought the twins glow-in-the dark pjs and they loved them and so this we thought it would be cute if we put all the kids in glow in the dark pjs. This was easier said than done; Phoebe had a HUGE tantrum because she said they were Cami's pjs and she didn't want to wear them & I am not sure why the twins took turns crying, but even Sophie got in on the crying. Eventually we showed Phoebe how she glows in the dark and now she LOVES these pjs and request to wear them almost every night.

Wicked Witcheys

2011-10-06T11:09:00.002-06:00

For the past year Phoebe has been in love with witches so I couldn't wit until they brought out all the witches at Gardener Village. We went on the first day they were brought out in the middle of September. It was surprisingly empty especially considering it was a Saturday too. We have gone to see the witches every year since we moved ere 5 yrs ago and it never gets old. Phoebe was thrilled there were witches everywhere we looked, but she said she was just too shy to get her picture taken with them.

After a big girl talk with mommy (okay more like bribing with candy incentives for good pics), Phoebs was able to show her face again and even dug deep for a smile or two.

We found one sign while wandering around that I couldn't pass up takeing a pic of Cory next to.

His companies banner!!! PGAW is his office and the "official" builders/remodelers of Gardener Village.

After all the pics were done we took the kiddos to Afton's Sweets and let them pick out a little piece of chocolate for a treat. Our total for everyone's candy rang up to 90 cents and it was enough to put some smiles on kiddos faces so it was a win win for us! Thanks witchys, we'll see ya again next year!

We Have GRAPES!

2011-10-06T10:05:00.000-06:00

For the first time in 3 years our grape vines and finally been something more than ornamental. We have delicious grapes. Unfortunately, my kiddos don't recognized them and their favorite food and instead just squish them all and stain their clothes with them. We didn't really get enough this year to do anything but eat them, but here's to hoping homemade grape jelly is in our future!

Preschool Update

2011-10-06T10:00:00.001-06:00

Phoebe has been in Preschool for 1 month now and she LOVES it! I only wish she would tell me more about her day. Most days she comes home and I ask her did you have fun which always gets an enthusiastic yes then I ask her what did you do and I am nearly always met with an "I dunno" so hen I have to go fishing for any detail. Did you read a story? What craft did you do? What was the letter of the day? Sometimes I get an answer but most of the time only she will ever know what she did that day. Some days, however, she must have be having so much from or been learning so much she comes home just exhausted.

I also want to throw out a BIG THANKS to all my neighbors helping me out whether they watch Shopie and the twins for 20 mins so I can drop Phoebs off without them falling asleep in the car and ruining their naps for the day, taking the baby monitor so I can pick-up Phoebs without waking everyone up to come with or picking Phoebs up from school for me. THANKS!!!

A New Home for Phoebe

2011-10-06T09:43:00.003-06:00

About 3 wks ago I made a snap chief decision, it's time for a room change. Well actually it was building bad situation that finally had a breaking point. Over the last couple months Phoebe had been a little displaced. It was apparent that Phoebe could not fall asleep with the twins. We would have screaming, fighting and no one would fall asleep until about 10-10:30 every night and since my kids ALWAYS wake up about 6am it make for very cranky kids all the time. To try and improve the situation day at every nap we would lay the twins down in their room and Phoebe would then sleep in Sophie's crib and Sophie would sleep in her bouncer. At night. For bed time we would do the same, but at 10 or so we would then move sleeping Phoebe back to her bed with the twins. This made things better for a couple months, but at the end Phoebe was a little confused on which room was really hers and in he middle of the night she would cry just to go back and sleep on Sophie's floor. It seems that Phoebe was mature enough to leave Sophie a lone in her crib over the last couple of weeks and Sophie now sleep through the night so a decision was made. Phoebe was was going move into her old room and be roomies with baby Sophie. I did the move all by myself, well I had 3 wee ones "helping" but I wouldn't call that help so much as hinder. Phoebe was SOOO excited for the move and especially to get her old bedding back that she kept telling me how much she liked me and what a nice mommy I was. Cami on the other hand was totally prostrate with grief that Phoebs was moving out. She refused to lay in her room without Phoebe and instead took a nap in the hallway on Phoebe's pillow.

As you can see it is a bit tight in the other room with Sophie and Phoebe together, but Phoebe ABSOLUTELY loves being roomies with baby Sophie and we have had NO bedtime fights since the room switch. Now when Phoebe goes to bed there is no resistance from her and she loves her roomie so much that she constantly yells "Is Sophie asleep yet?" & awaits the arrival of her roomie. With he exception of Cams, who still tries to sneak in to take naps on Phoebs bed, everyone is thrilled with the move.

Swaner Eco Center

2011-09-26T21:20:00.000-06:00

Us Fergys don't often leave the house with all kids in tow except for church, but as of late we have vowed to change our ways and begin by having family outings. Our first offical planned outing was to the Swaner Eco Center. Why did we chose this random place you make ask, simple, the building was an architect landmark Cory wanted to see. It turned out it was also kinda cool for the kids to play at too. We went on a Saturday and we were practically the only ones in the whole place so we didn't have to worry about the kids running around the neat exhibits they have, such as large dam remplicas, caves with animals nesting inside and climbing walls.

The Swaner Eco Center is a plot of 12,000 acres of preserved wetland in Park City. when you get to the top of the tower all you see is field as far out as the mountains, you would never guess this ritzy mall and apartments were on the other side of the Eco Center

We walked out on the pier and what o our wander eyes should appear, but tons of little caterpillars on all the leaves. I haven't seen these kind of caterpillars since I was a LIL-little kid on the farm. The kids all LOVED them inching around and how fuzzy they were, in fact many tantrums were thrown later that day because all they wanted was to go back and look at the caterpillars some more.

After a while we came back inside to play some more and discovered more fun stuff like an interactive light table of the animals found in wet lands and this mountain range that went up and down when you turned the wheel. After a couple hrs of playing we went out front and had out picnic lunch we brought. The kids were not really into eating however, because they had cool art outside you could limb on like the large metal worm thingy and a real 4 man bobsled.

Well our first outing was pretty fun and except for the gas to dive the 20 minutes to and from Park City it was a totally free trip, my favorite kind!

Blanding was anything BUT Bland

2011-09-23T10:36:00.001-06:00

A couple of weeks ago Cory had to run a job proposal down to Blanding, Utah and so he wouldn't make the 10 hr drive alone and for a fun adventure I volunteered the whole family to make the one day 10 hr round drive. We hit the road at 5:15 am and it was sort of a really boring drive until the sun finally came up then we got to see fun sites I have never seen before, like natural arches.

After dropping off the proposal we had to clean Phoebe up because she got car sick the last 30 minutes, then we headed over to the city park for some play time for the kids. They all had a fun time swinging and running around and if you look under Cami you will note there is a LARGE puddle she is swinging over, which shortly after we took the pics Josh fell into, so he wore his pj bottoms for a while until his shorts dried.

After the playground we drove up to Monacello and had a picnic lunch at the temple, which is so small it only took a couple minutes to walk completely around.

We then loaded up and headed towards Moab to visit a zoo we saw on our way down; it was called The Whole in the Rock Petting Zoo. Our kids and even us adults LOVED this place!

Besides all the animals which you got to feed here, they also had tons of other random stuff we enjoyed seeing.

This Camel is Carson the Camel and he is only 1 yr old and the zoo keeper said in the next year he will DOUBLE in size. He looked pretty large to me already. I also learned that Camels do not have any top teeth so you have to hold out the food so they can grab it with their gums.

The Ostrich stuck the food SOOO fast you can see in the pic it make Phoebe jump back. Cory and I were really surprised on how snake like the Ostrich's neck is.

Right after the pic with Phoebe and the Lamas this guy bent right over and started eating some of Phoebe's hair, I guess it looked like food to him.

Here is some of the random art and displays surrounding the Whole in the Rock stop.

This Lawn Mower bike is genious we think we are going to make this so when the kids are old enough they will WANT to mow the lawn.

This is a 5500 sq foot house that was built inside the whole in the rock. we didn't take a tour though 'cuse it cost more money and we were really ready to head home.

This little lizard in the bathroom scared me when I first saw it out of the corner of my eye, but it was Phoebe FAVORITE part of the day she even thanked Heavenly Father for seeing the lizard in the bathroom in her prayers.

The truck is "Mater" from Cars, the kids got a kick out of it.

This "mini" whole in the rock was some kind of sanctuary when you got inside they had candles and whatnot inside.

After this blazing hot adventure we were really all very tired and eager to make the 248 miles back home.

This really was a fun last minute day trip, the kids were all very well behaved and we all really enjoyed every bit of all San Juan County had to offer.

Phoebe's First Day at Preschool

2011-09-12T10:00:00.000-06:00

Last Wednesday was Phoebe's first day of Preschool. She was soo excited about it she told us that, "Next year she was starting school" for the whole month before she really started (yeah she still doesn't have any concept of time).Unfortunately, right before we left to go to school we had quiet a bit if drama, mainly over the outfit I put her in, so at the last minute we changed into the way too warm, but still cute outfit you currently see & because of sooo much time was spent having tantrumsI only got a quick picture before it was time to head out the door.

The first day of school was bring your stuffed animal day and for a month I kept asking Phoebe what she wanted to bring and she ALWAYS said a purple unicorn, which is something we don't actually own. Once we even saw on in a store and Phoebe said, "Oh mom I was wish it could come home with us." for a special treat the morning of preschool I went and got her the purple unicorn to take on her first day of school. when I came to pick up Phoebe she was enjoying a bear treat, to match the theme of the day, of teddy grahams & gummy bears.

Since the morning's photo shoot was soo rushed we came home and did another one full of adorable poses all of which Phoebe chose herself.

I love how huge Phoebe's school bag is compared to her. Really, I am hoping this is going to be a really fun year for my big preschool girl Phoebs!

4 Mos

2011-09-12T09:22:00.002-06:00

My baby is growing up too fast and I am not happy with it at all. On Labor day she turned 4 mos old and to celebrate the next dy we went in for her 4 month Dr appt. She got 2 shots and cried 2 cried and then was done. She is the happiest baby ever, she couldn't even get made enough to really cry about her shots.

Sophie Marie's 4 month Stats:

Weight: 13.11 lbs (50% for girls)

Height: 24 in (50% for girls)

We teach 'em young, GO DUCKS!

This month we went to the pediatric ophthalmologist and he looked at Sophie eyes and told us once again everything looked healthly, but she was experiencing Delayed Visual Maturation. This means that she is just slow in developing all her visual skills and she should be fine & just give her some more time. He also said if in the next month she isn't tracking more smoothly or past midline that we should bring her back, but we have already seen improvements in these areas so she will not have to be going back anytime soon! Sophie now always sleeps through the night and is very giggly when you tickle her. She doesn't mind tummy time nearly as much as the other kids & at 4 mos she was almost rolling over but now at 4 mos and 1 weeks she is fully rolling, mainly for her back to tummy, but we have also see her roll the other way too.

Fergy Day Campout '11

2011-09-12T09:22:00.000-06:00

Every year for Labor Day we have a camp-out in grandma+pa Fergy's back yard. This year we started by roasting hot dogs for dinner.

After Dinner Grandma had a special treat for all the kids. Feather princess crowns & wands for the girls and light sabers and Spider-man masks for the boys.

After dinner we cleaned up and put on a movie outside for the kids while all the tents were set up. We discoverd how much Josh really loved tents. He kept running in them all before they were even set up.

For our last big event of the night we all gathered round the camp fire and roasted marshmallows in all varieties and starburts.

The next morning we packed up the tents and had yummy homemade blueberry pancakes. You can tell by Josh's face he really loved the blueberries. We then had a lazy fun morning filled with playtime, swinging, nail painting, bug watching, and stamps.

Lunch brought excellent Training Table style hamburgers and very messing Popsicles. Some of my children made such a mess of their clothes, they will forever bear the sings of another fun Labor Day weekend at Grandma's

My kids loved spending soo much time playing with all the cousins that they are excited for this tradition every year and cry & cry when it is over.

Date Night: Phoebs Edition

2011-09-07T00:17:00.001-06:00

Note: I have done so many posts you'll have hit the Older Posts button at the bottom to see them all!

Last week for a special date I took Phoebe out shopping with me to pick out a first day of school outfit. She didn't really seem into that so much as I was, but one thing she was really into was the TCBY we we got afterwards. She LOVED the idea that I let her pick out her own "ice cream" (technically it is frozen yogurt, but she had a fit if I called it that) and then she got to pick all of her own topping to.

It was a perfect night to sit outside an have a great treat with my big girl Phoebs, we need to do this more often!

So My Kids Like Powder Sugar

2011-09-07T00:05:00.001-06:00

A couple of weeks ago I cam down stirs to Cami eating spoon fulls of powered sugar off the floor so I decided it was time we do something to prevent this mess from happening again.

Hints our not so hand child door lock on the pantry.

This morning I, however, learned a valuable lesson...locks do no good when the powered sugar is left out on the counter.

This was a HUGE mess and to help me out as I was vacuuming it up Josh got out of my way and sat on the couch so then the couch. Thanks Josh for spreading the sugary wealth now on to the couch.

Poor Cami was feeling left out since she was upstairs with me and not making the mess so she waited after I swept up the mess in the trash can and decided to resurrect the mess by dumping out the trash can on the floor. Thanks a lot Cams.

KIDS FOR SALE!

We Didn't See This Coming

2011-09-06T23:51:00.001-06:00

In the last couple of weeks we have been totally shocked as Cami seemingly overnight had entered her Princess phase. One day she was our tom boy who didn't like dresses, because she couldn't climb in them to randomly the next day seeking out her sisters dress-up skirts, necklaces and crowns and dressing herself up all by herself. I can't believe our little dirty rag-e-muffin twin is now going to be Princess rag-e-miffin we didn't see this coming!

2 Buck Tuesday (Year 3)

2011-09-06T23:41:00.003-06:00

This year we only chose to go to the farm at our annual 2 Buck Tuesday Homage. It was just too hot to wander the full gardens this year. The twins were a bit unsure of all the farm animals, Cami was especially siddish of a cow that kept wanting to smell and lick too closely to her.

Phoebe of course had no reservations when it comes to animals, she reached right out to pet all the animals. We kept having to remind her that some of the animals were look only animals so she couldn't reach her little fingers in.

Every year we once again realize wheat a great asset a little jail would be in our home for when we all need a little break from one another.

I think it's funny how ducks, one of the most common non petting zoo animals yet seems to entertain my children the most. They stood on the little bridge so long looking at the ducks that we eventually had to just drag them away. I guess we are instilling the Duck love in them well, only 15+ years till UofO will be lucky have 4 more Fergy attendees.

We really liked this red headed goat, it had the identical color hair as Josh & Cami.

We even got to see a real live UniHorn; look closely and you will see the real live mythical creature too.

After all were done looking at the animals we took Phoebe for he most favorite part, the pony ride. The twins were too young for it, but they didn't mind too much 'cuse I just set them in the stroller and feed them Red Vines while they watched Phoebs. Phoebe was so proud to be able for the first time to ride the pony all by herself without her dad walking along at her side.

On the way out we took a Fergy group pic one the cute cow bench. Sophie was melting in the 90+ degree day.

And as always we had to get on the farm scale for our annual weigh in. My scale is reading 200 lbs...what can I say, it's all Sophie.

We've Got Butterflies...

2011-09-06T23:00:00.000-06:00

One afternoon last month while we were playing outside a pretty little butterfly came over and landed on our butterfly bush.

All the kids were really amused and amazed by this. They watched this little butterfly fly around all over the flowers for over 20 minutes, which is really saying something, because my kids have the attention span of a gnat.

All he kids got their pictures taken next to the little butterfly.

Since learning that butterflies "eat" flowers Phoebe has to recite this fact to me constantly, so proudly that she learned something new.

Win or Lose Just Happy it Ended! (Annual Bees Game)

2011-09-06T22:28:00.000-06:00

In August we finally got around to having our annual Fergy Night out at the Bees Game. We chose a night that they were having fireworks, but unfortunately that makes for a VERY late & long night at the game.

Everyone did pretty well at the game especially our wee Sophie who ate and slept the whole night away.

The twins were a bit restless and we must have ran a bout a mile trying to chase them back down after their bi-minutely run-offs. Here is this pic Josh is siting next to uncle Dennis at the table like a big boy; unfortunately right after this pic he fell face first off this bench and messed up his pretty little mug for the next week.

In site of the strange music they played this time the fireworks were wonderful. It was nice to see a good fireworks show after the dud show we got to see from our car on the Fourth of July.

After the game Phoebe got to have one of her very first sleepover every with Aunt Megan & uncle Blake. She had tons of fun and talked about it non stop when she came home the next day. Sophie also tried to sneak off with Megan but, but luckily for us we saw her mischievous doings and took her home with us.

We had fun at the NEVER-ENDING baseball game, but we definitely have had our fix for AT LEAST another year for maybe even two, it depends how quickly we forget how about all the chasing down of children we really had to do.

House Warmings and a Fergy "Cracks" Night

2011-09-06T22:05:00.004-06:00

So I am late in posting as I am behind in everything lately, if you could only see the MOUNDS of folding I am delinquent in getting to...ANYWAY back to posting. Last month Dave, Cory's twin, bought his first home and as a house warming gift we gave him a gift of both beauty and function, a bouquet of new toilet seats.

In the middle of last month we also had one last girls day before the other Fergy Family (Dennis, Julie & Afton) moved to Ireland for a few months. This one was lower key then our usual full day of activities. For this one we just gathered together had delicious chocolate fondue with a TON-O- TOPPINGS and did some "cracks" (what Phoebe calls crafts).

We did distressed blocks of temple pics, I chose my beloved Portland Temple, while the rest of the crew chose do the Salt Lake Temple. It now sits on the entertainment unit, much to Cory's dismay (his isn't a huge fan of this "crack")

Davey joined us for this "girls" evening as he usually does, but when he left to go stay in his new home for one of the fist nights ever mom of course broke down, so sad to have the last baby fly the nest.

In spite of all the tears this was a fun & yummy night for the all the Fergy "gals". Thanks Julie for putting it all together!

There's No Place Like Home (Oregon '11)

2011-08-25T16:22:00.001-06:00

I am a couple weeks late in posting this mainly because it is always soooo long, with that warning out of the way...in the beginning of August we finally made our annual homage to Oregon sweet Oregon. The trip out the kids were really great which always makes the trip much nicer.

As we were about 2 hrs from Grandpa/ma Potts' we passes town we just had to stop and take a picture at. So here is our "Rowena" in the town of Rowena Oregon.

The first full day at G&G Potts' we had our big family and friends BBQ with lots of yummy food & swimming too. At the BBQ we got to see Uncle Robert and Aunt Lucy, Josh (whom Josh is named after) and many others. Phoebe was elated that Robert brought his little doggy which she acidently dropped on his head right after this picture (the dog recovered, but was a little shaken). To entertain the kiddos this year my parents got a bubble machine to play with this year and it ran for hours daily.

It was nice just to beable to relax many of the days, read the paper, and look out for the deer that coss my parents fireld everyday. After seeing the these deer so close Phoebe has really started a Bambi Phase, watching the movie and playing with her stuffed deer, something that rarely ever got played with.

The kids loved discovering all the fun play spots in G&G's house like the laundry shoot and this little window by the front door that is only 1 ft wide or less. Perfect for their miniature tushes.

On Saturday we went and enjoyed dinner at Robert & Lucy's new home, which the kids loved because it had a big back yard where they played with toys & (my favorite part of the doll house besides Phoebe's crazed look is that one of her "sleeping" dollies is a Seth Lord from Star Wars) bikes. They also got to pet Robert's python, Monte.

On Sunday, we went to visit my Grandma Hogan in her new home closer to my parents. The kids LOVED running around her home and playing with all her fun kick-knacks, like that frog that croaks as you walk by it. Unfortunately that frog followed us home and croaks whenever I walk into the kids bathroom, too bad the batteries "mysteriously" went missing out f it recently.

Because my grandma is 93 and prefers the heat on to about a million degrees while it is already 85+ outside we all were dying of heat exhaustion, so Uncle Robert when and go the kids ice cream cones to cool off and eat out back, this turned into quite the sticky ordeal.

Monday was spent at our new favorite beach, Taft Beach in Oregon. It is overly crowded and parking is always available & it is a cove so no big waves for the kids to be swept away in. This year the beach was PERFECT, I don't know if I have ever been to an Oregon beach on a nicer day in my whole life. The temp was in the 70s with very little wind & the water in the shallows was even warm enough to walk in without stinging. Everyone LOVED the beach, I think it was their favorite activity of the whole trip.

We showed the kiddos how to build sand castle which were much easier with pre-molded buckets.

Phoebe loved that the seaweed was red and constantly picked it up to show us, along with all the pretty shells in the sand. We also tried to teach Phoebs how to skip rocks in the water. She was pretty unsuccessful, but still loved just throwing rocks in the water.

Cami is our resident mess maker and took NO time at all to dig in & cover herself in water and sand. Phoebe dug her toes in the sand about 15 dozen times as well but eventually quit playing in the sand after she got some in her eye.

Sophie loved the beach and even dipped hr dainty little toes in the cold water for the first time with no complaints about the cooler temperature.

My brother, Robert, got bored after several hours at the beach and thought it was a good idea to take a piece of old charcoal and paint tiger stripes on Cami, obviously I was away at the time playing with Josh under he pier, which he loved weaving in and out of the polls, otherwise I would not have condoned it, because it quickly was then wiped all over the clothes.

I had to include this picture because this woman was not too far from us and she was carrying around her little dog in her bra the whole afternoon. I would have never thought of a bra being so multi-functional.

Tuesday was a day and relaxation and pampering for me. The kids discovered & locked themselves in the dog kennels. Is it still abuse to get one for our house to use if they like it???

In the afternoon I got a pedicure with my mom and in the evening we were treated to a wonderful dinner at Caruso's which sits right on the lake, very pretty.

While we were out my Aunt Barbara & Uncle Joe randomly stopped in; by randomly I mean they live in Florida and I hardly EVER see them. I am glad that they made their annual homage home the same time we did this year.

On Wednesday, we introduced Phoebe to a an annual tradition of ours, blueberry picking. You can see how full she got her bucket before it was too "heavy". I stayed home and watch the wee ones, but I was told that for the couple hours that everyone picked blueberries, Phoebe entertained them with her incessant talking. Grandpa even said if Phoebe could have talked those blueberries in her bucket it would have been filled many times over.

After berry picking, we went down to meet some friends of ours at Riverfront park. There we played on the playground, water park and carousel. My kids were a bit to pansy to really play in the water we many just chased them back down after they tried running away over and over again. My kids, however, LOVED the carousel and all cried for more after our 2 rides were done.

Wednesday night we had a few last minute visitors and went swimming in the dark until 10 pm to fulfill most of our swimming needs.

On Thursday we sadly packed up and headed home.

The trip was pretty easy despite missing one of our exits and taking a 15 mile detour into Washington. We even manage to sqeeze in seeing one more family member on the way home, so I would call this trip another great one; I wish we only didn't have to wait another whole year to do it again.

3 Months Already

2011-08-18T14:05:00.000-06:00

In the beginning of August (the 4th) our lil' Sophie Marie turned 3 months old. In the last month she has begun to sleep through the night 95% of the time, which is one of the reasons we love her so much. Sophie also took a trip to Cory's cousin the optometrist and he confirmed what we believed already that she can see, however, he recommend that we should still take her to an ophthalmologist for further tests to see how well. Sophie will track people slowly with her head and has begun to be the BIGGEST social smiler in the world!!! Really, many have told us they have never seen such a smiley baby before. Along with all her smiles her over all personality is very patient and and she fusses very little through out the day.